Scrapbook 2: Jun 1962 — Balloon, Titan II, Alan Shepard
‘Superballoon’ Sails Record 3,600 Miles
HONOLULU (UPI) — A 34-foot superpressure balloon, sent aloft to gather high altitude data, completed a record-breaking 19-day flight 3,600 miles west of Hawaii, Hickam Air Force Base announced.
The balloon, one in a series of development test flights being conducted by scientists of the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory, was launched from Kindley Air Force Base in Bermuda May 31.
The balloon’s payload consisted of performance monitoring instruments to measure the temperatures and pressure of lifting gas and air, the altitude, a data coder and transmitter and a radio command receiver.
In traveling 9,300 miles in 19 days, the balloon exceeded the 10-day flight recorded by another balloon in the same test series last month.
Sergeant Missiles Will Go Overseas
WASHINGTON (Special)—Secretary of the Army Elvis J. Stahr Jr. has announced that Sergeant missile battalions will be deployed overseas next year.
The Army, however, has not revealed the number of battalions to be deployed or their locations.
The secretary also announced that by the end of June, the Army will activate two more Sergeant missile battalions at Ft. Sill, Okla.
AF Lofts Atlas, Receives Titan II At Calif. Station
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (UPI)—The Air Force has successfully fired an Atlas long-range missile, and at the same time reported arrival of the first Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile assigned to this base.
The Atlas shot—which traveled down the Pacific missile range—was made from a semi-hard emplacement in an operational exercise by a 13-man Strategic Air Command crew. On a test witnessed by President Kennedy last March, an Atlas traveled 5,000 miles to within less than a mile of target.
The Air Force also reported a 103-foot, two-stage Titan II rocket was flown here aboard a C133 cargo plane from the Martin Co. plant at Denver. It will be used to test the silo facility and ground equipment, the Air Force said.
The Titan II Silo complex was used last year in launching of a modified Titan I, but thus far no Titan II has been fired from this base, 160 miles north of Los Angeles.
Upon completion of the tests, an operational prototype Titan II will be launched later this year from the 155-foot silo.
The 6595th Aerospace Test Wing, commanded by Col Joseph J. Cody Jr., will direct the Titan II program here.
The crew launching the Atlas was from SAC’s 564th Strategic Squadron.
Titan II Falls Short in Test
CAPE CANAVERAL (AP)—Titan II, the United States’ most powerful military rocket, fell short of its 5,000-mile goal on its second test flight because of trouble with the second stage.
Flights Past Mars, Venus To Be Studied
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The space agency plans soon to let a couple of small contracts to study the feasibility of sending men on a year-long flight past Mars and Venus sometime in the early 1970s.
Informed sources emphasized that there is no project for manned reconnaissance of Earth’s nearest planetary neighbors.
Purpose of the studies, it was said, is to supply the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with a “conceptualization” of what such a project would entail if it ever is formally adopted.
It was understood that NASA will pick the Ford Motor Co.’s Aeroneutronics Division and the Lockheed Missile and Space Co. to make six-month feasibility studies. After reports are in, one of the companies may be asked to continue the study for another six months or a year.
Instruments First
Long before sending men to the vicinity of Mars and Venus, NASA plans to reconnoiter both planets thoroughly with instruments aboard unmanned spacecraft.
But if the Apollo project to send three-men teams to the moon and back in the late 1960s is successful, planetary expeditions are expected to follow.
The Mars-Venus fly-by studies will go into such matters as rocket power, spacecraft shielding, “life support” equipment and supplies, recovery on return to Earth and cost.
This is the way preliminary ideas appear to be shaping up:
The flight would be attempted in 1971 or 1972 at a time when Mars and Venus were in positions, relative to the Earth, which would make it possible for a spaceship in an elliptical orbit to brush past both in one trip.
A year after takeoff, having flown past both planets, the astronauts would find themselves back at their starting point, the Earth.
FRENCH ROCKET SITE
From Our Own Correspondent PARIS, Tuesday.
A £15 million launching-site for space rockets is to be constructed in France in the Landes area south of Bordeaux. Work is due to begin next year and the first launchings should take place in 1965.
Senate Group OK’s ‘Private’ Signal Satellite
WASHINGTON (AP)—The Senate Commerce Committee has approved by a 15-2 vote a bill providing for private ownership of the U.S. portion of a global satellite communications system.
In its principal provisions, the measure is similar to one passed by the House May 3 by 354-9 vote.
The bill provides for the creation of a corporation to own and operate a commercial system of worldwide communications by bouncing electronic signals off the satellites.
Half of the corporation’s stock would be reserved for communications companies, and half would be offered to the public. The offering price of the shares could not be more than $100.
When the measure is called up for action in the Senate, possibly in two weeks or so, a public-vs-private ownership fight is in prospect.
Kennedy’s Urging
President Kennedy urged Congress to provide for private ownership, under government regulation, but Sen. Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., Wayne Morse, D-Ore., and others have vowed to battle for a government ownership bill they have introduced.
Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, D-Wash., the Commerce Committee chairman, said Sens. E. L. Bartlett, D-Alaska, and Ralph Yarborough, D-Tex., who cast the two dissenting votes, had been given 10 days to file a minority report on the committee’s recommendations.
The committee’s bill differs from the House measure with respect to the ownership of ground stations for sending and receiving signals from the communications satellites.
Under the Senate measure, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would be directed to decide in the public interests whether the ground stations should be built and operated by the satellite corporation or by individual communications companies “without preference to either.”
The House bill directed the FCC to encourage ownership by communications companies.
Shepard Gets Honor Degree
HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — Dartmouth College awarded an honorary degree to astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., naming him “the American Christopher Columbus of space exploration.”
Bachelor of arts degrees were conferred on 606 seniors at the 193-year-old college.
Shepard, who was given an honorary master of arts degree, was born and spent his childhood in Derry, N.H., where his parents still reside. He returned to New Hampshire Friday, making his first visit since the historic suborbital flight May 5, 1961, that made him America’s first man in space.
Dartmouth said his exploit “was heroic because it was the kind of bravery that matters greatly. It was bravery with skill that gave new relevance to knowledge and opened unimagined realms as the reward of effort.”
“Dartmouth is privileged to acknowledge such a mastery of both self and of unique tasks. . . .”
17-Orbit Shot Next Project For Spacemen
HOUSTON (UPI) — The director of manned space flights for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) says the agency plans no more three-orbit flights.
The next planned mission is a day-long, 17-orbit shot set for early next year, he said.
D. Brainerd Holmes said here that four capsules, similar to the three-orbit capsules but with capacity for more fuel and oxygen and refined equipment, are currently being built for the 17-orbit mission.
Fire in Titan Silo Kills Calif. Worker
CHICO, Calif. (UPI) — A civilian worker was killed when a fire erupted in a Titan missile silo, the Air Force said.
It marked the second accident in two weeks at the missile complex, six miles northeast of Chico. An explosion in a Titan silo hospitalized seven on May 24. The victim was identified as Edward Eugene Taylor, 32, of Chico, who died of burns.
Sen. Case Says Army Will Close N.J. Missile Base
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Sen. Clifford P. Case, R-N.J., said that the Army plans to close its Nike-Ajax missile base near Summit, N.J., by October.
However, the senator said it was still not clear whether the 65-acre tract on which the base is located would be given back to the Union County park systems.
Case checked into the status of the base in response to a query from Rudolph Kirestan, general superintendent of the Union County Park Commission.
An aide to the senator said an Army spokesman informed him about the impending shutdown, evidently because of a change in emphasis in defense concepts.
He said the Army could not say at this time whether it would retain the land and use it for another defense facility.
Japan Will Join Space Cooperation Program
TOKYO (UPI) — The Japanese cabinet has approved Japan’s participation in the international space cooperation program of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Great Britain, France and West Germany are members of the program and Italy has been admitted as an observer. Japan’s membership will become effective after formal exchange of documents.